Plato update

A new version of Plato is now available. This includes an major new 'auto-compilation' feature for Fortran programmers.

When writing new code, Plato now automatically communicates with the FTN95 compiler which reports back programming errors in the code as you type.

Users of FTN95 v8.61 can download the new Plato together with the associated updated FTN95 via the following link...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/td3j1ggw1a676yt/Update.zip?dl=0

A YouTube demonstration video is provided here...

https://youtu.be/LCn4AF44hpw

These new versions of Plato and FTN95 are expected to be compatible with FTN95 v8.61 but it is always safer to keep a backup of the earlier versions.

Paul,

Thanks very much for these 8.62 and 5.30 updates to 8.61.

The video is a very welcome addition to explain the updates. Very helpful.

I copied the ftn95_8.61 to ftn95_8.62 and all appears to be working ok.

It would be good if this info was also placed in announcements, rather than hidden in this thread, as this looks like a welcome update.

I tried the bracket matching, but did not highlight at first. ( the enclosing lines did show the bracket extent on 1 line ) After checking the matching bracket colour and changed from magenta to blue all worked well. ( Tools > Settings > Environment > Fonts and Colours > Bracket matching ) I now have brackets red and highlighted brackets in blue. I could not see where Fortran brackets were set to Red ? The following highlighted brackets over multiple lines.

    real a0, a1, a2, a3, a4, aa, x
    aa =  ( ( (a4 *x   &
             + a3)*x   &
             + a2)*x   &
             + a1)*x   &
             + a0

With Do .. End Do matching, underline is blue and DO is blue. This works very well also. Can the underline be a different colour ?
( just asking if this is changeable; not a request to change! )

With IF .. ELSE IF .. ELSE .. END IF ; could these be investigated for highlighting ? ( an indication if simple change, as SELECT CASE will surely be on the next list ! )

Thanks very much for this update and for the informative video, much appreciated.

John

John

Thanks for the feedback.

An underline is part of the font and has to be the same colour as the character.

Only the beginning and end of an IF is highlighted. ELSE and ELSE IF are much more tricky.

I thought that I had included SELECT CASE but maybe not.

Paul,

I opened another .f90 file and it did highlight the IF, THEN and END IF and also a DO END DO loop and matching brackets.

However the short code example below does not highlight the IF block. It also sometimes does not highlight the DO block, although I can't confirm this response sequence. It does highlight the matching brackets. (uninitialised variables warning on Compile (Ctrl+F7)) It is a nonsense code, that was testing statement functions. Not sure if this is a problem here. I have two files open, with the file below as tab 1. I am selecting Release Win32.

subroutine extsub
  implicit none
  integer ij(5), kk
  !
  call intsub(ij, kk)
  print *,kk
  return
  
  contains
    subroutine intsub(i, j)
    implicit none
    integer, intent(in) :: i(5)
    integer, intent(out) :: j
    integer i1,i2,i3,i4,i5,mean,k
    real a0, a1, a2, a3, a4, aa, x

    mean(i1,i2,i3,i4,i5) = (i1+i2+i3+i4+i5)/5    ! statement function

    if ( i(1) == 0 ) then                        ! if statement
      j = 0
      do k = 1, size(i)
        j = j + i(k)
      end do
      j = j / size(i)
    else
      j = mean(i(1),i(2),i(3),i(4),i(5))
    end if
    aa =  ( ( (a4 *x   &
             + a3)*x   &
             + a2)*x   &
             + a1)*x   &
             + a0
    return
    end subroutine intsub
  end subroutine extsub

! program test
!  call extsub
! end program test

Can you reproduce my response ?

It does not seem to like the comment on the IF line. But if you remove it and put it back, it's OK.

I will make a note but it could be a while before I get to it.

Paul,

Glad to know I have not messed up the install. I can certainly live with this improved version of Plato until your fix.

Thanks for this,

John

Excellent work Paul, your video highlighted some good new features and a few old ones of which I was not aware. I know making videos is time consuming, but be assured your effort is appreciated. Ken

How does one download and unzip these two files? When I save as to my computer, cannot unzip, just says they are html files? Sid Kraft

Hi Paul: Apparently there is a new Plato and FTN95 in dropbox, Plato 5.3 from Plato 5.25. When I go to dropbox and try to download, it said 'save to' which I did. When downloaded the files say .zip but when I try to 'un zip' says html files and will not do? Any suggestions? Sid Kraft

There are a number of videos on Youtube that show you how to unzip an archive. Here is one of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wm4PwF8DqY.

Thanks Paul, Sid Kraft

Sid, I wondered if you were not following the correct procedure to download and save zip files from Dropbox. When you click on a Dropbox link provided by Paul and others in this forum, you will see near the top of the browser window, right of centre, something similar to:

Locate the button with dark blue background with the name 'Sign in'. Do not press this button. To its right, you see a button with a downward arrow pointing to a horizontal bar. Press that button and select 'Direct download'.

Quoted from John-Silver mecej4, I had a similar suspicion but I don't think there's a need to log in in order to click and download the file,I do it directly all the time without logging in.

John, I wrote:

...'Sign in'. Do not press this button.

Users with a Dropbox account can mount their Dropbox file tree as a virtual drive. For such users, being able to save to the virtual drive may be a convenient feature, especially if that drive is shared with a workgroup,

On the other hand, people do not need to open a Dropbox account just to download a public-access file.

I was happy for decades with the K.I.S.S. functionality of FTP, but nobody seems to use FTP anymore.